In the field of remote health monitoring, systems have been developed to enable an individual to contact medical professionals from their dwelling regarding a medical emergency. For example, in various systems, an individual is equipped with an emergency call button that initiates a call or signal to an emergency call center. The concept of such a system is that if an individual has a health related problem, they can press the emergency call button and emergency medical providers will respond to assist them. However, in some cases, the individual is unable to press the emergency call button, such as when an individual has fallen and cannot reach the button or is rendered unconscious.
More complex systems have also been designed to monitor medication compliance or check health characteristics of an individual, such as heart rate, body temperature, blood chemistry, blood pressure, respiration, and the like. In these systems, the individual typically has to provide data periodically, such as by telephoning a monitoring center to provide health information to the center or by checking onto a web site or other data collection system. For example, blood chemistry monitoring systems have been devised where an individual takes a sample of their blood, performs tests on the blood, and provides the results to medical professionals via a telephone line. The blood chemistry information is then reviewed by a medical professional in order to monitor the health of the individual.
Neither of the above systems has the capability to automatically detect if someone has become incapacitated and requires assistance. There are numerous
For example, in various embodiments, a monitoring system can monitor the activities within a dwelling and can provide automated alerting to a number of third parties selected by the individual that can render assistance. Some embodiments can incorporate an emergency calling feature with an automated detection feature to detect if an individual has become incapacitated and to initiate a call to emergency personnel. Embodiments include systems to monitor the activity of an individual within a dwelling, such as a house, condominium, townhouse, or apartment.
Embodiments of the invention include a number of sensors that are connected to a variety of items within the dwelling to indicate the activity of the individual. For example, sensors can be connected to the user's bed to indicate that a user is lying on the bed. Sensors can also be used on drawers and cupboards to indicate when the individual opens a drawer or the door to a cupboard. Many other types and uses for the sensors are described in more detail below. Various embodiments of the invention are designed to be transparent to the occupant of the dwelling and, therefore, such a system can monitor the daily routine of the occupant without the occupant having to interact with the system, such as by logging onto websites, entering health data, and the like.
Additionally, by using the information from the sensors, the system can identify the activity of the individual being monitored. The system can also track user behavior over time and can create expected amounts of activity and types of activity during certain periods of time. For example, in various embodiments of the system, the system can monitor sensors that indicate that the individual is eating, such as by tracking activations of sensors in the kitchen and the dining room. If tracked over a number of days, weeks, months, or even years, this information can be analyzed to identify a behavior routine.
The information can be analyzed to identify if there is a usual pattern of activity or number of sensor activations that are indicative of the individual doing accounts of such individuals that have been in distress for periods of hours or days after they have fallen or become ill and have not been able to sunmmon help, especially with respect to elderly individuals living alone.